grey (not blue nor green)
by White Butterfly
Summary: Grey is such a changeable colour. Frigga is grateful for such mercies. (Or: In another universe, it is not only Loki who is lied to about his true parentage.)


**Title:** grey (nor blue or green)

**Character/Pairing:** Frigga, Thor, Loki  
**Genre:** Alternate universe  
**Rating:** G  
**Wordcount:** 694

* * *

It is fortunate, Frigga thinks as she watches her boys sleep, that grey can be such a changeable colour. If Loki's eyes look a little greener when he plays outside with Thor or when he wears the brown tunic Uncle Vili gave him for his solstice gift, then it's the fault of the light or that brown really doesn't suit his colouring. Same goes for Thor - if he's discouraged from draping the ox blood red tapestries around his shoulders when he's playing at warriors or spends too much time pestering Idunn in the gardens, well, he shouldn't be doing those things.  
Thor and Loki still play outside for far too long and wear things they oughn't, regardless of any discouragement they receive.

Her children snuffle in their sleep, curling around each other in the chill of the night, torchlight flickering over their features and catching the mirror on the far wall.  
It is also to her favour, Frigga thinks as she glimpses sight of her reflection in it as she rises to settle her sons' bedding around them once more, that jade green and cornflower blue look so much like regal grey.

It is so easy to smile and laugh any changes of colour off as a trick of the light, to call them over and admire their eyes that are so like their father's in Sessrúmnir's golden halls. In other places too it is simple enough to wipe away cuts and scratches with her magic and to make it so their eyes are lit in a warmer hue. A hand on a shoulder and a swift flutter to check they aren't harmed feels exactly the same as a small glamour being applied.  
Magic is easy to pass off as the concern of parent and that falsehood is not hard for her and Odin to maintain.

Their eyes are currently hidden in sleep, movement visible under Thor's eyelids, and Frigga wonders what her son is dreaming of as she lingers over them, pulling Thor's hair out from where it's caught under his head and gently untangling the locks. They have both grown out of the activity young children suffer as they dream, but if the way Thor grasps at the sleeve of Loki's night-shirt and the furrow between Loki's eyebrows indicate anything, they still dream the vivid dreams of youth.

Her fingers move to her other son's hair, simply combing through rather than freeing or untangling the shorter length. Loki sleeps lightly however and his eyes flicker open at the touch of her fingers combing through his raven dark hair.  
"Hush," she says and bends down to press a kiss to where she had lingered. He makes a pleased sound, always eager to accept affection, and burrows further into the newly arranged blankets and their warmth.

Frigga sighs at that movement and considers that she and Odin are doubly fortunate that Asgard has no cruel winters, no embassy to Jotunheim, no chilled waters to flush their skin blue and to betray their secret to Thor and Loki. That her sons will be raised on honey and grain and meat from placid beasts, not frost melt and lichen and the flesh of terrible creatures; that they will grow to be strong and tall but not giant and lumbering.  
No reason that the lies of her and Odin should be exposed, their deception revealed to Asgard and the nine realms. Nothing to make a clever person wonder why she and Odin would keep their sons coddled out of the way of the cruelty of life and to put it together with how their eyes are sometimes so unlike the royal couple's.

Because Thor and Loki are no sons of Asgard, even though they are yet sons of Odin and Frigga. They have been cradled and cared for in those arms, looked after by three grey eyes and educated as princes. Yet ice runs in their veins and they properly belong to the harsh land they were stolen from.  
Her sons are born of Jotunheim and Frigga dreads the day her fortune breaks and the tapestry of lies she and Odin have woven is torn to pieces.


End file.
